“I was the quickest in dry conditions and that what was nice,” said Sweden’s Joel Erkisson. “That was more than what I had hoped to achieve on my first day of official FIA Formula 3 European Championship testing.” His Finnish team-mate Niko Kari also exceeded his own expectations by finishing second on day one. “I’ve advanced to Formula 3 from my home country’s Formula 4 and the step to the FIA F3 European Championship was huge. Daniel Riccardo was right when he said that the FIA Formula 3 European Championship is a mini F1. Driving here is big fun although the weather conditions were rather difficult, today.”
And indeed, the weather conditions the young guns had to cope with were rather unpleasant. “Most of the time, we tested in mixed conditions. A fully dry or fully wet track would have been better. In the conditions we had, you could easily destroy your wets,” said Briton George Russell (HitechGP, 1:32.263 min) who therefore didn’t drive many laps. Nick Cassidy (Prema Powerteam, 1:29.440 min) agreed: “The weather wasn’t ideal for a productive day of testing. I hope the conditions will be better tomorrow.”
The Italian Alessio Lorandi (Carlin, 1:28.956 min) finished fifth on day one, followed by his team-mate Ryan Tveter (1:28.981 min) and Maximilian Günther (Prema Powerteam, 1:29.120 min). The German already looked forward to his first laps of the season in the evening prior to the first day of testing. ”Now we finally begin to work on the track.” Raoul Hyman (Carlin, 1:29.223 min), Lance Stroll (Prema Powerteam, 1:29.256 min) and Nick Cassidy completed the top 10.
